A Lot of People are Pirating Star Trek: Discovery

In news that should only surprise a small group of absent minded fools, it turns out that Star Trek: Discovery is a big deal on torrent sites. Who would have thought that people would enjoy not paying for a TV programme that's part of franchise so popular it's lasted 51 years?

While it's estimated that 15 million will have watched the premiere episode on TV, and that the premiere coincided with a record number of subscriptions to CBS All Access, you can't put a good pirate down. People don't want to pay for stuff, especially not when they're being asked to pay $6 a month for a single show.

As I write this the first two episodes of Discovery aren't even in The Pirate Bay's top 20 list of most popular TV shows. However, EW reports that it got as high as #11 in the 24 hours following its release. As I write this 1,249 people are seeding the first episode and 979 are seeding the second. And that's just on the Pirate Bay right now.

At times it feels like there are more torrent and streaming sites than there are stars in the sky, so the numbers will inevitably be much higher.

Those figures are not as high as various episodes of Game of Thrones (whose season 7 finale still sits at the top of Pirate Bays list a month after its initial broadcast) and Rick & Morty; but those two shows are incredibly popular and don't have fanbases that are quite as dismissive as Trekkies have been known to be.

Pirates are always going to be there, but if you are one of the people who got hold of Discovery through dubious means and enjoyed watching it then you should give it some proper support. It's currently on Netflix, so it's not like you need to take out an expensive Sky subscription to watch it legitimately.